Tryst

Alec noticed that we had missed Tryst and the collective shrug in the comments suggested that we weren’t alone. Tech trees, unit upgrades and the ability to merge basic units together in order to make new ones – these are the things that apparently set the RTS apart from the crowd. The crowd, should you care to take a look at it, seems to be mostly just Starcraft 2, flexing its mouse-clicking muscles and loitering with intent. To draw some attention to itself, Tryst has coyly released a demo, although it only allows players to use the human faction. It does allow multiplayer and AI skirmishes on the included map though. Download here or watch gameplay footage below. Or run through the streets in the rain, I guess.

Blue Giant’s sorta-indie strategy title Tryst is on the list of Games I Am Somewhat Curious To Play, the trouble being that said list is currently longer than the longest thing you can think of. Having XCOM and FTL installed on my PC is really not helping. My curiousity stems from the fact that there are precious few traditionalish RTSes these days, and Tryst looks straight out of the early 2000s build’n'bash avalanche. At the same time, it’s clearly more than a little aware of StarCraft II, proudly bearing chubby buildings and billing itself as a ‘competitive RTS’. To be honest, I had been quietly expecting tons of post-SCII RTSes, but instead the industry headed DOTAwards and so Tryst stands somewhat alone. I can’t tell you if it’s good, bad or in that endless gulf in between the two, but as it’s out now I thought I’d better at least show a video and see if anyone of you fine folk have played it and could share some sentiments about it. (more…)